(Untitled)

[shurimon]

I'm reading the novel "Heart of Darkness" so I can write a review on it for my History of Modern Africa class (I chose it because it's chock-full of stereotypical depictions of Africa and Africans) and, like so many other "classics", I'm left scratching my head as to why it's considered such a literary masterpiece. I'm halfway through, and nothing

Comments

[ryu_no_sora]

I had to read Heart of Darkness in my english glass during 12th grade and am pretty sure I was the only one who actually finished it (despite it being relatively short) and I hated it. I only remember the very beginning (steamboat trip) and weird ending. ...I agree with you 100%- whatever makes that book so amazing is completely lost on mr.

I read Eragon about a year ago and found it to be like a poorly written Lord of the Rings or something. Way too wordy with a plot that just never caught my interest- why I finished it I don't really know. I respect the guy for writing it but it just wasn't my thing :|

[shurimon]

I WISH I could just put Heart of Darkness down and never finish it, but it's too late to pick another book to write my review on... oh well. I'll soldier on.

One of the many reasons I hated Eragon was because it was so derivative of LoTR, to the point where you could almost call it plagiarism. I've heard more than one person say Paolini copied passages almost verbatim from other works, though I can't prove it myself. Almost all of the names look like they came right out of a Tolkien book. The sad part is, though, most of its teenage fanbrats will never realize that, because they have the LoTR movies and thus will never bother to open the books.

Even besides that, the plot was much too clichéd and the writing's just not OMGAMAZING like a lot of people made it out to be. Sure, it got published when he was 17, but you can tell it was written by a teenager. Clichéd plots can work if you have skill, but he did nothing to put a fresh spin on any of it.

[shurimon]

Oh, and another thing about Heart of Darkness, is I fail to see why it was necessary to write the whole novel as one long, almost-unbroken quote. That... just doesn't make sense to me.

[chewilicious]

I got the Eragon novel for Christmas and read it recently. I thought it was very poorly written. Not in the spelling/grammar sense, that's all been fixed by an editor... but in the plot and description sense. And it was so boring and cliched and uninteresting. Blech.

[shurimon]

Yeah, from hearing positively about Eragon through word-of-mouth I was expecting something amazing, but it was mediocre at best. Totally predictable (i.e., replace "Eragon" with "Luke Skywalker" and "Brom" with "Obi-wan" *g*), trite, and much too close to Tolkien and other (much better, I might add) writers for my tastes. The little inconsistencies, factual errors, and downright WTF moments also took points off for me. Like when Eragon rode Saphira without a saddle, and his legs were rubbed raw and bloody but his pants were miraculously intact, or the fact that Eragon barely mourns his uncle, or the spotless-clean butcher shop, or the fact that Eragon buys all that meat in the form of steaks and chops when they have no icebox... It just did not deserve to be published, but I bet part of the reason it was is his publisher thought they had the next Harry Potter and saw money signs all over it.

[chewilicious]

The original publishers were his parents.

Then the book somehow got really popular, so another publishing company took it.

[shurimon]

The original publishers were his parents.

... yeah, that just makes me hate its popularity even more. I've heard that on the official boards, Paolini's dad goes around and deletes any sort of negative comments or criticism about his son or about the books.

On a sort-of-related note, I was at Borders the other day, and they had reviews of books up from local middle-schoolers. One was for Eragon, and the kid who reviewed it wrote "Eragon/Saphira" under "characters" and my mind went all sorts of WHOOOOOOP places.

[shurimon]

Yup, it was. I haven't seen "Apocalypse Now", but it was based on "HoD", yes.

[arionhunter]

Heart of Darkness is famous because it's a precursor to the modernist movement (The use of a parataxic style, defamiliarization, it as a critique of modern life) and exposed the horrors of what was going on. (It's in the same context as The Jungle.) Leopold had been lying out his ass to everyone, covering up all the abuses. This is a fascinating look at it by On The Media.

That blurb is absolutely terrible. Once you get to Kurtz there's elements of that, but Marlowe is never actually corrupted until the very end, and even that is questionable.

[shurimon]

That blurb is absolutely terrible. Once you get to Kurtz there's elements of that, but Marlowe is never actually corrupted until the very end, and even that is questionable.

I noticed that; the blurb was very misleading and sort of soured me toward the book when it really shouldn't have.

After writing my review and looking at/critiquing it from a historian's perspective, I can definitely appreciate it for what it is, and the exposé element of it. I still thought it was confusing, but I don't hate it as I did last night.

[enchantedteacup]

I didn't like Eragon very much either. Or Eldest, for that matter. Took me forever to finish both. :P

[shurimon]

I didn't even finish Eragon because it made me so, so very angry. It was the first time I was actually sorely tempted to just put the book down and let the movie tell me the rest of the story. I didn't even watch the movie, though, because I hear it was just as bad as the book.

[enchantedteacup]

I suppose Eragon would've made me angry if I'd read LotR, but I only read LotR after I read Eragon. I'm not planning on watching the movie at all; I didn't even watch any of the trailers.